


Anchor

by Nightscrawl



Series: The Meaning of More [9]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 14:26:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17205059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightscrawl/pseuds/Nightscrawl
Summary: Probing a mystery leads to serious discussion.





	Anchor

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [Schattenriss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schattenriss/pseuds/Schattenriss) for doing the beta.

The faint _flip_ and _swish_ that marked the turning of a page was the only thing to break the silence as Dorian lay reading. The candles burned low, but despite the lateness of the hour, his mind was active and he knew he would be unable to sleep. Judah had wanted him to remain, and so he had.

The author had managed to turn what could have been an interesting treatise on the subject of ink quality and line thickness as relates to the power of runes into a boring screed, hardly more interesting than reading a mere instruction manual. He rewrote entire passages in his mind as he read them and found himself more and more veering away from the text to examine the diagrams and accompanying annotations.

Judah was lying against him, and every time he neared the bottom of a page, his eyes were drawn to a faint green glow revealed in the shadow of Judah’s hand—his Anchor hand—as it lay on his chest. Dorian tried to ignore it. He had never ventured to ask him about the Anchor before, considering it a subject that his friend would be disinclined to talk about, in addition to the simple fact that not much was known about it.

At last, Dorian’s curiosity got the better of him. Thinking that Judah was asleep, he gently laid the book aside and shifted the hand so he could examine the mark more closely. A fade-touched slash crossed the full width of Judah’s palm. Away from any active rifts or the Breach itself, it was quiet, muted, but he had seen it burst into activity on numerous occasions and wondered what it felt like.

“You can ask me about it,” came Judah’s unexpected remark.

“I thought you were asleep. Did I wake you?”

“No. Dozing only.”

Dorian smoothed out Judah’s palm, ran his thumb over the mark and then down its full length. The hand relaxed in his grip, becoming easily pliable to his manipulations. There was no physical scarring; the line itself felt no different from the skin adjacent. In truth, it was easy to forget that Judah even had it most of the time; daylight made it barely visible and he saw that his own hand easily blocked the glow, just as Judah’s gauntlets did.

“Does it hurt?” Dorian ventured to ask.

“Not right now.”

“When you close a rift?”

If they were going to have an involved conversation about this Judah wanted to be more comfortable. To that end, he sat up, with Dorian following suit, and positioned himself so that the other man could lean against him. Once they were both settled he offered his hand for inspection again and responded, “You’ve seen it… I don’t know… come to life—I guess?—when we approach a rift. _That_ hurts: to suddenly go from nothing to a sharp sting like my hand’s just been flayed open. Gripping my shield helps though, and we usually have to fight off demons, so it’s easy to ignore. But when I close a rift… that’s something else. It feels like all the nerves in my body are being pulled out through my hand. I don’t know how it works. I can’t control it. Suddenly there will be a pressure of resistance and it just feels natural to pull my hand away. Everything snaps back and the rift is closed.”

Dorian’s mind was working now; he enjoyed a puzzle. “Has anyone tried healing it?”

“When I fell out of the rift at the Temple of Sacred Ashes I was unconscious for three days. Solas studied it. I’m sure he tried; he apparently did all sorts of magey things, none of which worked. I don’t know what he did. You should probably ask him if you want to know.”

“He’s not here, so I’m asking you.”

“Thank the Maker.”

Dorian _tsked_ in minor chastisement and adjusted himself to lean more comfortably against Judah.

“Does it feel different? When I touch you?” Judah asked.

“No. It doesn’t feel any different from your other hand… or any other part of you.”

“Hm, I think I should feel disappointed by that.”

Dorian’s mind was so focused on the mystery that he barely registered the playful banter at all and only said, “You know what I mean,” in a distant tone. Judah simply chuckled in response. “If I focus on it I can sense a lingering magical energy, but that’s all.”

They lapsed into silence for a time. Judah enjoyed the attention, even as he realized that Dorian wasn’t focused on _him_ so much as allowing his scholar’s mind to explore something new.

“I wonder if you _could_ learn to control it, open or close rifts at will and such,” Dorian said, thinking aloud.

“I’m not a mage, Dorian. You learned to do such things when you were a child and I bet now you can barely imagine not having your magic. I’m thirty years old and have never had anything like this.”

“True enough. But I don’t think it would be as difficult as _you_ seem to think it would. You already have discipline and willpower. It would just take practice and probably some experimentation.”

The word “experimentation” made Judah shake his head and smile in amusement. Sensing the motion, Dorian turned to look at him and asked, “What’s that look for?”

After a short breath of laughter, Judah replied, “I find this aspect of you amusing and charming because you don’t even realize you’re doing it,” and saw Dorian raise his brow in complete lack of understanding. “You don’t want power for yourself. If you did then you wouldn’t be here. You only see this,” he made a minor movement of his Anchor hand, “or time magic, or red lyrium, as a knot to be unraveled. If something useful comes of it, then so much the better, but that wouldn’t be the intended purpose. Oh, you see the dangers, certainly, but that doesn’t stop your curiosity. It comes across as genuine, honest, pure, and that’s why I like it.”

“You think too highly of me,” Dorian said, thinking that “pure” was an odd word to hear associated with himself.

“What I _think_ is that you’re the best Tevinter has to offer, and the Inquisition is lucky to have you,” Judah said, then paused a moment, adding significance to the next words. “I’m lucky too.”

“Well, I—”

“Just say, ‘thank you,’ ” Judah suggested, not allowing Dorian to make a flippant remark in response to the flattery.

Dorian chuckled, turned to kiss Judah on the cheek and said, “Thank you.”

Silence fell again as Dorian returned his attention to the Anchor and Judah grew pensive as he considered it along with him. He still didn’t remember how he got it, and only now knew what it was for. Or rather, he knew what Corypheus had intended for its use. But he knew neither what its full capabilities were, whether he would ever learn them and be able to utilize them, nor whether he would be able to seal the Breach once and for all with it; his work at the temple seemed only a temporary solution. He also didn’t know whether Corypheus’s vexed claim that the Anchor was permanent was accurate, or if the statement only referred to the former magister reclaiming it to use for his own purpose.

The peace and solitude that embraced Skyhold belied the constant danger they were in. While it seemed unlikely, the possibility remained that Corypheus could appear at any moment and take them unawares, despite his spymaster’s vigilant efforts to prevent it. Judah knew, they both knew, that either or both of them could die before all was over, a reality that was easy to overlook during quiet moments of togetherness such as this.

On some level, Judah felt that the probability was high that he could very well die while saving the world. The fabled Grey Wardens had done it five times over, hadn’t they? And too, he considered the Anchor, how it felt to close a rift, and wondered if it would eventually wear him down, or tear him apart if he had to close something much larger.

Judah wanted a full understanding between them and allowed the thoughts to fall out of his mouth as he said, “The large rift at the Temple of Sacred Ashes was… the pain was intense. I felt like it was draining my life away through my hand. If I have to close the Breach in the same way… I think it will kill me.”

Dorian was silent for some minutes. He placed his palm against the back of the Anchor hand, slipped his fingers between Judah’s and held it. The Anchor itself forgotten, he used his other hand to caress the one he held, brushed over all its fingers, rubbed the palms together, and finally ceased when he sandwiched the hand between his two, hiding the Anchor’s glow completely.

From the beginning he had known that either of their deaths was a possibility; it would have been naïve not to think so. Still, he didn’t _like_ to think of it, nor analyze how he would be affected by Judah’s death, and to what extent. But things would come to an end, as all things do, whether that end would come from his own death, Judah’s death, or the inevitable conclusion of this crisis—whatever that may be—he didn’t know. Judah may grow tired of him when all was over. Nothing was certain. He finally had something that he’d wanted for a very long time and it was inconceivable that he would be allowed to keep it.

Dorian heard a note of impending doom in Judah’s voice and understood that, out of everyone touched by it, this whole ordeal was the most difficult for _him_. Only Judah had been marked in such a way. Only Judah was looked on as a sign from the Maker, a symbol of hope. Only Judah held power over the rifts, and—one supposed—over the Breach itself. Only Judah had been made leader of a “heretical” organization and was now responsible for hundreds or thousands of lives. And only Judah, alone among all people of Thedas, was considered by Corypheus himself to be his rival.

Judah was expected to save the world, and he knew it, even if it came at the cost of his own life, which Dorian thought he seemed to expect. The strain must be immense. Dorian had doubts and reservations about many things. But no matter what happened in the future, or what he himself thought or felt about it, he _knew_ that his presence and their relationship brought Judah a small measure of peace, and was glad of it.

“Are you… afraid?” Dorian asked, wondering how his friend felt about it all.

Judah’s head made a soft _thud_ as he leaned back against the headboard, looked at the ceiling and sighed. “Not for myself,” he started, tightening his grip around Dorian. “I fear for the people I care about, and those I know who care about me. It’s not that I think they won’t get on without me, but I just… don’t know what will happen.”

“I don’t either. I suppose we’ll just have to find out together.”

 

 

End.


End file.
